Conservatives, libertarians, Tea Party groups, and liberty-minded citizens are organizing a nationwide “Day of Resistance” on February 23 to oppose President Obama’s radical agenda — especially his “executive order” assaults on the Second Amendment. Organizers say over 50,000 people in more than 30 states have already signed up to participate in an estimated 100 local rallies, with the resistance movement aimed at unifying patriotic Americans from across the political spectrum behind the U.S. Constitution and gun rights.
“On January 16, 2013, President Barack Obama issued 23 executive actions against your 2nd Amendment Constitutional right to bear arms,” explains the “Day of Resistance” website, operated by an organization known as “Stop This Insanity” and by TheTeaParty.net. “He did this without the consent of Congress, which in itself violates the foundation of the Constitution and the co-equal branches of government.”
Due to the lawless assault, organizers say, it is time to get active now. “In response to these unconstitutional actions by the President, on .223, February 23, 2013, the American people will stand together in defiance to protect the right that protects ALL of our rights, the 2nd Amendment!” the Day of Resistance homepage continues, referring to .223 caliber ammunition used in popular weapons being demonized by Obama and his anti-gun rights allies.
According to organizers, the myriad rallies will be organized locally in an effort to bring neighbors together with each other in defense of American principles. The goal of the local organizing, they said, is to unite communities so they can reassert their right to determine their own destiny free from lawless federal dictates that violate the U.S. Constitution and infringe on the unalienable rights of the people.
Some states will have multiple rallies going on in different cities, the official list shows. Alabama, the first state on the list, for example, already has three official rallies scheduled in different cities. Meanwhile, national organizers are still soliciting help from local volunteers to get even more events off the ground in other areas, with the central website offering users easy tools to get involved, organize local action, or just connect with other like-minded citizens nearby.
Among the organizations that are participating in the Day of Resistance are local and state Tea Party groups, Women Warriors, an anti-political corruption group known as Western Representation, and other conservative organizations and grassroots activists. The upcoming rallies, meanwhile, have already started to receive significant attention in the press, with even the far-left U.K. Guardian writing a story about the effort.
“We’re actually seeing an entirely new crowd of people who weren’t politically active at all,” Day of Resistance organizer Dustin Stockton told the controversial British paper, which devoted much of its “article” to demonizing gun owners and weapons. “All of a sudden they hear the debate move to guns. We’re seeing a lot of people who are outdoorsmen, who probably didn’t vote in the last election, [or] in the last two elections.”
Based on the feedback so far, Stockton said he expects the rallies to be highly significant on the national stage. “From the response that we’ve been getting we believe this is actually going to be larger than the Tea Party wave in 2009,” he said. “We have this whole new group who are involved, and the Second Amendment is really a unifying issue for a lot of Americans, Republicans, independents and even moderate Democrats.”
As mentioned above, one of the groups participating in the Day of Resistance is the conservative-leaning political action committee known as Women Warriors, which recognizes the importance of the right to keep and bear arms — especially for females, who tend to be physically weaker than males and, therefore, more vulnerable to attack. A promotional YouTube video on the rally’s central website features multiple women discussing the Second Amendment and the tens of millions of Americans who refuse to tolerate any further unconstitutional restrictions on the gun rights of law-abiding citizens.
“People who kill will kill with a gun, a car, a knife or anything else they create,” the group’s executive director Tiffiny Rueger told the Guardian, a newspaper that suffered a major blow to its credibility for hyping bogus global-warming hysteria in recent years. “Enacting more bans on guns will not stop bad people — it will leave good people unprotected. If bans on things were successful, there would not be drug users.”
The February 23 date for the nationwide rallies was chosen for multiple reasons, according to organizers. Among the most important: the fact that 2/23 brings to mind .223 caliber ammunition, the bullets used in popular semi-automatic firearms like the AR15 that are being targeted by Obama and certain extremist Democrats in Congress. The date is also a Saturday, allowing working people to attend. It is the day that American forces raised the flag at Iwo Jima in 1945, too.
While the Second Amendment and Obama’s lawless “executive orders” are a primary focus of the rallies, those are hardly the only concerns, organizers said. Indeed, the effort is much, much broader than that. Leaders behind the Day of Resistance say they are hoping to help reignite the passion and outrage of 2009 and 2010 that contributed to major conservative and Tea Party victories in national elections, with extremist Democrats and “moderate” Republicans swept out of office — particularly in the House of Representatives — amid a tsunami of disgust with the federal government.
There are also a lot of other serious issues facing America that organizers want addressed — everything from Obama’s takeover of the nation’s healthcare system to the seemingly never-ending series of scandals swirling around the administration are in the crosshairs. “We think that gives us an opportunity to talk about how ObamaCare is affecting people’s personal privacy and all the other issues the Tea Party movement has to talk about,” Stockton told Breitbart, a major conservative media outlet. “We’ll talk about over-regulation, bailouts, crony capitalism, Benghazi, Fast and Furious.”
For Stockton and countless other Americans, despite a ham-handed cover-up by the administration and its allies in the increasingly discredited establishment press, Operation Fast and Furious is still a big deal that must be properly addressed. The Obama administration scheme, which was first exposed by brave whistle-blowers in the ATF, involved arming certain Mexican drug cartels with heavy American weapons, all paid for with taxpayer money.
Official documents later revealed that the “targets” of the supposedly “botched” operation were already working for the FBI. The resulting violence — hundreds of Mexicans and at least two U.S. law enforcement officers have been murdered with “Fast and Furious” weapons so far — was intended to be used by the administration to demonize the Second Amendment, Justice Department e-mails showed.
In the wake of the explosive revelations, disgraced Attorney General Eric Holder eventually became the first sitting Justice Department chief to be held in criminal contempt of Congress — primarily for his lies and his role in the ongoing cover-up of the scandal. He is currently abusing his position to avoid prosecution. “When the top cop in the country is as crooked as Eric Holder, it really cements our argument that ‘yeah, you really need to not be counting on law enforcement for protection. You need to be taking personal responsibility,’” Stockton explained.
Of course, Stockton and other organizers told reporters that they realize anti-gun rights zealots and their allies in the mainstream media will try to criticize or downplay the effort — if the rallies are covered at all. The establishment press, though, has come under heavy fire for hyping insignificant protests while ignoring or demonizing major efforts to restrain an out-of-control federal government or stop abortion, for example. The public is catching on, too: According to recent polls, the vast majority of Americans no longer trust the major media.
Last month, in the face of a hostile media and government climate, tens of thousands of people rallied at state capitols nationwide in defense of the Second Amendment. At the same time, the public and its elected officials are increasingly stepping up to defend gun rights and defeat Obama’s lawless assault on the constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.
Hundreds of sheriffs in virtually every state, for example, have publicly vowed to protect the rights of their constituents no matter what unconstitutional “laws” or executive edicts come out of Washington, D.C., or the White House. State governments are taking action too, with well over a dozen legislatures and some governors working to nullify federal assaults on gun rights. Even cities and counties are nullifying gun control in their jurisdictions.
Analysts say the establishment’s exploitation of tragedy led by Obama and the increasingly ridiculed press to push for more infringements on the rights of law-abiding Americans has inadvertently awoken a sleeping giant. The Day of Resistance, like the Guns Across America rallies last month and the quickly expanding nullification movement, may be just the beginning of an awakening that will ultimately contribute to restoring lawful, constitutional government in the United States.
With each passing day, activists say more and more Americans are waking up and getting involved. That trend, meanwhile, is expected to continue accelerating fast. Obama, of course, may think he can do whatever he wants, and mountains of evidence suggest that he does. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that the American people and a growing segment of Congress do not plan to accept it without a fight.
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, politics, and more. He can be reached at [email protected].
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